New Orleans ? Dozens of homeless people living in pup-tents in the shadow of City Hall packed up Wednesday and moved into hotel rooms with the help of a nonprofit group, while about 200 others remained in the camp.

The colony in Duncan Plaza has grown in the past few months with people who said a tent is the only affordable housing they could find since Hurricane Katrina, which has caused the homeless population to skyrocket.

A homeless assistance group called UNITY of Greater New Orleans hoped to convince 100 of the campers to leave for temporary housing, but only 61 accepted the offers.

“The hotel they’re offering is crack city. They’re not sending us to the Holiday Inn or the Hilton,” said a woman who asked only to be identified as Donna. The woman, 47, finally took the help after a pair of UNITY workers promised to find her an apartment eventually, and warned her that the city would not tolerate the camp forever.

An estimated 12,000 people are homeless, up from 6,300 before Katrina, according to UNITY.

State officials said they would release $3.8 million in homeless assistance funds by Friday, which UNITY plans to use to further target the men, women and children in the plaza and elsewhere in the city.